If any new laws were being discussed, then I might agree that the question is, at least partially, governments role in the marketplace. Yet no new laws are being proposed about Microsoft, and most people are happy that we have antitrust laws in general.
Well, one thing you've got to remember is that antitrust law is not some static, concise guideline like the speed limit on a highway or the law against murder. It changes with the times, keeping pace with the economic and political theories that motivate people in the political arena.
So, when you say that no new laws are being proposed and the issue is not government's role in the marketplace, while it's true that no amendments are being proposed to the Sherman Act, I would beg to differ. Beneath the surface of the statute's very broad language, some very significant changes indeed are being proposed in the law's meaning, and under what circumstances and how vigorously it is enforced.
Like society in general, the economic theories that underlie antitrust jurisprudence are starting to move in a more liberal/populist direction. Specifically, the Microsoft case gives the government a chance to try out new economic theories to see if they will fly, just as the Chicago School advocates got their chance to apply their theories to government policy during the Reagan Era. It just so happens that Network Externalities and Raising Rivals' Costs tend to lead to a more activist enforcement posture, and a more active government role in the economy, than do traditional Chicago style theories. That's why liberals tend to like these new theories and want to try them out in new cases like the one the DOJ is about to file against Microsoft.
These changes may be for the better, and we may like them. But to say that the case against Bill Gates is just about enforcing the antitrust laws in the same way that pulling over an errant motorist is about enforcing the speed limit, the way Orrin Hatch implies every time he gets up on his high horse, is to ignore what is really going on. |
